Emotion

Detaching myself. And this is important- not just like someone like me, who is dying, but for someone like you, who is perfectly healthy. Learn to detach.

You know what Buddhists say? Don't cling to things, because everything is impermanent. But detachment doesn't mean you don't let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That's how you are able to leave it.

 If you hold back on the emotions- if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them- you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that love entails.

But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then you can say, 'All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.'

By Mitch Albom

(Tuesday with Morrie) 

Death

Everyone knows they're going to die, but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.

So we kid ourselves about death.

Yes. But there's a better approach. To know you're going to die, and to be prepared for it at any time. That's better. That way you can actually be more involved in your life while you're living.

How can you ever be prepared to die?

Do what the Buddhists do. Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, 'Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?'

Is today the day I die?

Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.

But the truth is, if you really listen to that bird on your shoulder, if you accept that you can die at any time ---  then you might not be as ambitious as you are. 

Mitch Albom (Tuesday with Morrie)